The other did the same.

And all the way to the prison the soldiers felt that they were not walking but flying through the air--as if hypnotized by the prisoner, they felt neither the ground beneath their feet, nor the passage of time, nor themselves.
Mishka Tsiganok, like Yanson, had had to spend seventeen days in prison before his execution.

And all seventeen days passed as though they were one day--they were bound up in one inextinguishable thought of escape, of freedom, of life.

The restlessness of Tsiganok, which was now repressed by the walls and the bars and the dead window through which nothing could be seen, turned all its fury upon himself and burned his soul like coals scattered upon boards.

As though he were in a drunken vapor, bright but incomplete images swarmed upon him, failing and then becoming confused, and then again rushing through his mind in an unrestrainable blinding whirlwind--and all were bent toward escape, toward liberty, toward life.